RAM
by CailenBraern
Summary: During a retrieval mission, the team discover something about Ianto that even he had no idea about. Something that changes him for the worse. With outside influences manipulating him and removing all trace of his old life, is this the end of Ianto Jones?
1. New Adventures

**Random access memory** is a type of computer data storage. It takes the form of integrated circuits that allow the stored data to be accessed in any order. The word _random_ thus refers to the fact that any piece of data can be returned in a constant time, regardless of its physical location and whether or not it is related to the previous piece of data.

AN: Thanks to my beta, usedsongs! And to my friend eringiles for her encouragement and reactions.

* * *

Ianto took a break from walking and took a deep breath. Despite it being only a short walk from the city centre, he couldn't deny that coming to Bute Park felt like an escape from the hassles of city life.

However he was here on duty, and so he spent only the shortest amount of time taking in the natural beauty of the park before catching up with the team, now fairly far ahead. He shrugged off his coat, wishing he could take his suit jacket off as well. Despite it being a mild April morning, they weren't under the cover of trees yet, and the sun beat down upon their backs, unusually warm.

This Friday morning had started like any other. Well, with the exception of Gwen being absent; she and Rhys were on their honeymoon, and weren't expected back until the following Monday. Ianto had handed out mugs of coffee and tea, and then the team had all huddled around Tosh's station as an alarm started ringing.

One of Tosh's multiple programmes had detected an alien signature in the nearby Bute Park. The signature was weak, almost dormant, and had only been detected thanks to a few alterations in the scanning algorithms by Tosh. They had no way of telling how long it had been there.

This was the reason they were now surveying the park. Tosh's equipment had pinpointed the co-ordinates of the alien signature, which Ianto had recognised as being a patch of trees, not far from the Gorsegg Stone Circle. The area was in a blind spot from any of the nearby CCTV cameras, which was why they were checking it out the old-fashioned way. With their eyes.

Together, the team passed the stone circle, Tosh gasping at the beauty of it while the recently-deceased Owen snorted in disdain, entirely unimpressed. Eventually they reached the edge of a miniature forest, and Jack stopped, turning to address the team.

"Ok, Tosh and Owen, with me. There's no sense splitting up as Tosh seems sure the signature range is no wider than this group of trees. Ianto, I want you to rope off the area, make sure any dog-walkers that start sniffing around here are pointed in the other direction."

"Sir."

The three disappeared into the trees while Ianto carefully folded his coat and found a branch to hang it over. He then crouched down and set his toolkit on the ground. He opened it and reached in to grab the police tape. Standing back up, he began the task of taping the area off.

"Anything, Tosh?"

Toshiko glanced down at the handheld device she was carrying, concentrating on the fluctuating lines on the monitor.

"It's hard to pinpoint its exact location, the signal's so weak. But we're close, practically on top of it."

Jack sighed, looking around the area of woodland they were in. For all they knew, the alien signature could be in the branches of the tallest tree, and it had been a while since he had been tree-climbing.

"Where's Owen?" Jack set off in the direction Tosh pointed in, beckoning her to follow.

They caught up with him within a minute. The doctor was peering in bushes, parting the foliage with a branch.

"Anything?" Jack asked, though he was doubtful.

"A few leaves, some branches, trees. You know, this would be a lot easier if we knew what the bleeding hell we were looking for!" Owen cast an accusing glare towards Toshiko, who missed it entirely as she focused on her handheld device once more. He leaned against a red telephone box and shoved his hands in his pockets.

"I'm trying, but the signal's so weak it could be anything. The readings have spiked, though. Whatever it is, we're right on it."

"Ok, so we keep looking." Jack looked at Owen, as if expecting a challenge from the doctor. Owen just shrugged and stood up straight. It was then that Jack noticed it. "What is a phone box doing in Bute Park?"

Owen looked at it, flinching as if noticing it for the first time. Toshiko looked up from her scanner, then back down at it.

"That can't be it, can it? What's alien about a phone box? It must be inside it." She put the device away, looking at the phone box with interest.

"I haven't seen one of these for years! A 'Vermillion Giant'! One of only fifty made! Late 1920's, look, see?" Jack moved to the side of the phone box. "It has a mailbox, and slot machines for stamps. What is one doing here?"

The phone box's red paint was peeling from years of abandonment. It's hiding spot within the trees had ensured nobody had come across it, and if they did it didn't draw their attention. The glass panels were blacked out, masking its interior. Jack circled it twice before pulling the door gingerly. It seemed to be stuck, and with a stronger yank it opened slightly. Jack tried to quash the excitement rising up within him.

"You guys stay here, I'll check it out." He disappeared inside, closing the door behind him. Tosh and Owen shared confused glances, and within seconds they heard Jack whooping and cheering, laughing as well.

"Jack?" Tosh called out, edging closer to the booth.

"Come in, guys!" Jack yelled out, the glee in his voice unmistakeable.

"He's cracked," Owen said to Toshiko, "how are three of us going to fit in there?"

Tosh grasped the handle on the door and pulled, gasping in shock as she looked in.

"Tosh?" Owen called, but Tosh ignored him and disappeared inside. Owen shook his head in disbelief and followed.

Once inside, Owen blinked several times as if what he was seeing was an illusion. When the vision refused to change, he spun around where he stood, taking in every inch of it. "It's bigger on the inside!"

"This, my friends," Jack stood at the centre, next to a hexagonal panel, at the centre of which was a huge cylinder that reached the ceiling of the vast room, "is a TARDIS!"

"It's a Spaceship?" Tosh questioned, already pulling her laptop out of her bag, and starting preliminary scans.

"Sort of. It travels through space and time!" Jack started fiddling with dials and switches, frowning when nothing happened. "Though by the looks of it, she's long been broken."

"She?" Owen scoffed, walking around the large room. "It's a bloody machine, Jack."

"Hey, they have feelings, too!" Jack glared at Owen, anger blazing in his eyes.

"The signal's still weak; it could have been here for years, decades even and we wouldn't have known," Tosh interrupted the potential confrontation.

"Surely someone would have noticed a telephone box in the middle of Bute Park?" Owen shoved his hands in his pockets once more as he leant against the rail by the door.

"Not necessarily. The TARDIS is designed to blend in, a perception filter, like the one on our lift. We nearly missed it out there." Jack continued to fiddle with the controls of the ship, growing increasingly frustrated as nothing happened. "What I'd give for a Sonic Screwdriver right now."

"But how did it get here?" Toshiko wondered aloud, not looking up from her laptop.

"I have no idea; a Time Lord must have crashed here."

"Time Lord?" Owen looked bewildered, crossing the space to join Jack by the console.

"Alien. They use a TARDIS to travel through time and space, that's why they're called Time Lords." Jack avoided eye contact with either of his employees, feeling guilty over withholding information. "This one's broken though. I can't fix it, and believe me, I have a lot of experience with these things. We'll have to bring it back to the Hub, put it in the archives."

"How the bloody hell are we going to drag a massive spaceship back to the Hub?" Jack smirked at Owen's question.

"It's still a telephone box on the outside!" Jack reached up to his ear and pressed the earpiece. "Ianto, you done?"

"The area's taped off now," Ianto's voice came through all three's earpieces. "I followed Tosh's co-ordinates but I can't see you anywhere."

"Can you see a red phone box?" Jack's amusement was evident in his voice, a grin lighting up his face.

"What are you talking about? Why would – oh wait, I see it now. What's it doing here?"

"Step inside, Ianto!"

"Is this a joke, Jack?" Jack laughed at Ianto's scepticism.

"No, it's not a joke. I'm being serious, come inside and I'll explain!" The comms went silent, as Ianto apparently considered this. A few seconds later, the door behind Owen opened and Ianto stepped in, mouth open in shock and disbelief. The door closed behind him, and Ianto peered around the vast room, unable to believe that the huge place could fit inside a phone box. Jack waited for the inevitable comment, but was surprised by what Ianto actually said.

"Well, I see dimensions are irrelative!"

Jack was disappointed and about to retort but backed away from the panel as the cylinder started pumping, lights flickered and the room was filled with a rush of sound as the TARDIS powered up.

"Jack, what the hell's going on?" Owen yelled, looking at the console for answers. Jack tried flicking switches, pressing buttons and pulling levers, mirroring his earlier actions although now he was trying to stop what he feared was happening. However the TARDIS refused to yield to his control, and all too soon he heard that oh-so-familiar sound.

"We're going on a little trip!" Jack tried hard to keep the panic out of his voice, but the terrified expressions on each one of his team member's faces didn't help him to stay calm. Ianto and Tosh opened their mouths to say something, but before they could the TARDIS juddered as it began its flight, and they went sprawling to the floor.

Jack and Owen gripped onto the panel, the only thing keeping them upright. Owen was glaring daggers at Jack, who merely shrugged helplessly.

Apart from that initial jolt, the ride was smooth and bump free. Owen and Jack were able to relinquish their grip on the panels, standing straight. Toshiko climbed to her feet, checking her laptop over for damage.

"Ianto? You OK?" Jack called out, concerned as their youngest team member had remained on the floor. The sound of retching echoed around the room, and as he looked closer, he saw Ianto's shoulders heaving as he threw up on the floor.

"Aw, look, teaboy's being travel sick!" Owen smirked as Jack rushed over, kneeling down beside him.

"You ok, Ianto?" Jack rubbed Ianto's back in small circles.

"Sorry, Jack!" Ianto's voice was hoarse, spoken between shuddering gasps as he fought to stop throwing up. "Not sure...what's happening!" Jack continued his massage, deep in thought. Truth be told, he'd never heard of anyone being sick on the TARDIS. He certainly never had, and knew for a fact that Rose, Martha or Mickey hadn't either. Ianto eventually stopped heaving and managed to pull himself up using the railing, standing up on shaky legs.

"Alright now?"

"I'll be fine once we stop." No sooner had he spoken the words than the TARDIS powered down, and the engines silenced.

"Why don't we see where we are?" Jack beamed at his team, regaining his old sense of adventure and excitement. All three of them looked back at him with a mixture of fear, apprehension and, on Ianto's part, nausea. Jack ran up the steps and pushed open the door, only to be knocked down as a figure barged into him. They fell to the floor, Jack pinned down by the stranger.

"Doctor?"


	2. The Stowaway

First of all, thank you so much for all of you who have reviewed and added this fic to your alerts. I've never had such a response before, so I just hope I don't disappoint! Now this chapter is unbetaed, as I didn't really want to keep you waiting for the next part, so forgive me if there's any mistakes.

* * *

Jack ran up the steps and pushed open the door, only to be knocked down as a figure barged into him. They fell to the floor, Jack pinned down by the stranger.

"Doctor?"

"Jack? What are you doing here?" The Doctor looked down at Jack with utter bewilderment. Jack simply flashed his most charming smile.

"As much as I enjoy you straddling me like this, we have company!" The Doctor looked up, noticing the rest of the team at last and rushed to his feet. Jack followed after, gesturing in turn to each of his team. "These are my friends, Owen Harper, Toshiko Sato-"

"We've met before! Dr. Sato, how have you been?"

Toshiko regarded the Doctor with nervousness and confusion.

"I'm sorry, I don't-"

"Big Ben! Spaceship crashed into it, little cute pig fellow!"

"But that was a different man!"

"We can explain that another time." Jack interrupted. "Last but not least, this is Ianto Jones." The Doctor smiled at Ianto and gave a small wave. Ianto tried to smile back, but ended up grimacing. He turned his back to them and hunched over as he retched once more.

"I can't say I've ever had that reaction before!" The Doctor exclaimed and looked a bit miffed at the vomiting Welshman.

"He didn't take to the trip very well. Got a bit...Space-sick I guess, or time-sick, I'm not sure. Where are we anyway? Doc?"

The Doctor, who had listened to Jack's words and stared at Ianto with a frown, snapped to attention.

"Hm? Oh, right, well you're docked to my TARDIS at the moment. Whatever you activated seemed to have been a homing course, finding and latching on to the nearest TARDIS." He looked back at Ianto, who was still being sick in the corner. "He needs a cup of tea." He looked at Owen. "Oi, you! See if you can get him a cup of tea, eh? There's a good boy."

Owen looked positively livid at the suggestion. "Oh right, yeah! I'll just conjure one up out of thin air, shall I?"

"Haven't you explored? There's bound to be a kitchen round here somewhere." He gestured to the corridor, which neither Owen nor Tosh had noticed yet.

"Go ahead!" Jack urged them. "Go explore!"

Owen looked hesitant, but allowed himself to be guided out of the room by an excited Tosh. When they had left the room, the Doctor cleared his throat, looking at Jack with a manner of grave seriousness.

"Now then, Jacky boy! Care to tell me why you're on a TARDIS?"

"We sort of found it. In Bute Park. Could've been there for years for all we knew. But it was dead, completely dead! I tried everything, and nothing worked."

"And yet, you're standing here now. What happened?"

"We were going to take it back to the hub. Ianto came in, and then it just started powering up."

"Let me guess, he gasped and said 'it's bigger on the inside!' Every time!" Jack chuckled at the Doctor's assumption.

"Oh, no! Not Ianto Jones! He said 'dimensions are irrelevant' or irrelative or something like that."

The Doctor looked back to Ianto, who was now groaning in pain as his body started to protest against his repeated nausea. He was now dry heaving, having nothing left in his body to purge.

"And then the TARDIS awoke." The Doctor frowned in thought.

"What? You think Ianto did this?"

The Doctor put his hands in his pockets and turned back to Jack, bouncing on his heels. "Well, it's possible."

"No way! Ianto didn't have anything to do with this, for god's sake, he's human!"

"I'm afraid I might have to disagree with you there! From where I'm standing the evidence seems to be pointing to the contrary."

The TARDIS fell silent. Ianto had heard their conversation, and with the Doctor's last revelation he stopped heaving and stared at them, eyes wide in confusion. Jack simply glared at the Doctor, fists involuntarily clenching. He turned as he saw Ianto climbing to his feet and in Ianto's eyes he could tell that Ianto was just as baffled as he was.

"You're wrong."

"He's time-sick, Jack. And only my kind gets time-sick." The Doctor crossed over to where Ianto was leaning against the wall. He fished his Sonic Screwdriver out of his pocket and switched it to a torch setting, using the light to peer into Ianto's eyes. Ianto flinched, trying to back away from the Doctor but met the resistance of the wall behind him.

"I'm human." Ianto's voice was quiet, cracked with dehydration. His face was flushed, his skin clammy with sweat.

"I've no doubt that's what you believe," The Doctor stopped looking into Ianto's eyes, and instead scanned Ianto with his screwdriver. "It's possible, however, to change your physiology, even your memories. Human. Nice suit, by the way."

"Doctor, stop it!" Jack stormed over to them, pushing the Doctor gently but forcefully away from Ianto.

"Jack, you can't ignore the facts! The TARDIS only recognises its master, and you say it powered up after Ianto stepped onboard! Add to that his illness which only Time Lords suffer from, even if they've used the Chameleon Arch."

"Chameleon what?" Ianto looked between the two men, utterly bewildered. His head ached like buggery as he tried to process what was being said, but what had started as a nice stroll through Bute Park had ended up as being the day from hell. He felt awful, weak and sick, and on top of that there was a madman trying to tell him he wasn't human.

"Ignore him, Ianto! Doctor, he doesn't have a watch, I know this for a fact. He's only got a stopwatch and, well... I broke the last one! The new one, it's a perfectly legitimate stopwatch. There's nothing odd about it, no engravings, nothing!"

The Doctor opened his mouth to reply, but was distracted by the return of Toshiko and Owen. They both carried a tray each, with several cups of tea along with a bowl of sugar and a jug of milk. "Oh, marvellous! You brought us all one, aren't you sweet!"

Owen glowered at the Doctor as he walked past him and Jack, approaching Ianto.

"Here you go, mate. Milk, sugar?"

"Best give it to him as it is, eh?" The Doctor suggested, but he was ignored by all as Ianto reached for a cup of tea, knocking it back as though it was water.

"Feeling any better?" Owen gave Ianto the once over, checking for signs of illness. "I've got some aspirin if you want..."

"NO!" The Doctor practically yelled, startling everyone. Ianto jumped in surprise, and then turned back to Owen, smiling as he replaced his cup on the tray.

"I'm fine, now. Thanks."

"See! Told you, cup of tea and he's right as rain." Jack glared at The Doctor as he rubbed Ianto's shoulder. Ianto ignored the gesture and began looking around the TARDIS once more, and Toshiko and Owen dispensed cups of teas with confused glances and increasing curiosity. "Anyway, as I was about to say, the Chameleon Arch isn't the only way! It's the most convenient and easiest, yes! But, not the only way."

"Doctor, as much as I love you, you've gone completely crazy. Ianto is as human as Tosh and Owen, maybe even more so." Jack looked Ianto up and down, checking he was ok.

"How far back does Ianto Jones go? Where did he come from?" The Doctor narrowed his eyes when recognition dawned. "I know you. You were at Canary Wharf!"

Ianto's eyes closed as painful memories danced through his mind; fear, pain, loss, devastation. "I lost my life at Canary Wharf. Lisa..." Ianto choked out a sob, trying hard not to cry. Jack pulled him into a hug, holding him tight.

"I lost someone too. Someone I loved." The Doctor's posture changed; he viewed Ianto with suspicion and became defensive and guarded.

"That's not the same!" Jack barked back, unable to help himself, and the Doctor frowned. "Rose is alive and well!"

"I still lost her! Thanks to the imbeciles at Torchwood One and their fascination with the so-called 'ghosts'! You can never leave well alone, can you?"

The silence hung over the TARDIS, thick and stifling. Minutes felt like hours as everyone shared glances, unable to resolve the situation. The silence was broken by a sharp gasp from Ianto, who pulled back from Jack, doubling over as if he'd been punched.

"Ianto?" Jack's face fell in concern when Ianto's only response was to moan and grunt in pain. Ianto laid one palm across his chest and clawed through the fabric of his suit jacket. "Ianto, what's wrong?"

"You, er, Owen, was it?" The Doctor pointed at the other doctor and Owen snapped out of his horrified trance. "Did you find anywhere else on your exploration? A medical room or an examination room?"

"Yeah!" Owen nodded and walked over to assist Jack. Together they aided Ianto, still vocalising his agony in walking across the room and down the corridor into the examination room. Toshiko and the Doctor followed; Tosh white with worry, and the Doctor deep in thought.

As they entered the room, they found Ianto already laid down on the bed in the centre of the room, Jack besides him, holding his hand while Owen was struggling to figure out the technology.

"Doctor, care to jump in?" Jack's voice was raised, panic filtering though.

"If I was to make an educated guess, and my guesses are always educated, I'd say that the TARDIS has recognised her master, which is why she powered up when Ianto stepped on board." The Doctor assisted Owen, more familiar with the TARDIS's gadgets. "And in turn, she's started up the process of undoing whatever he did to himself in the first place."

"What the hell does that mean?" Jack looked up from Ianto's sweating face and into the Doctor's eyes. Owen became frustrated with the alien technology, and with growing concern over Ianto apparently having some sort of cardiac arrest was rooting through his kit, searching for his stethoscope.

"It means his body is changing; turning back into a Time Lord."

"No..." Jack whispered, refusing to believe it. The groans and panting breath coming from the man below him felt like individual stabs of pain straight to his heart. Owen peeled open Ianto's suit jacket, and undid the top buttons on his shirt. He began to listen to Ianto's heartbeat, and swore out loud in shock.

"Jack...he's got two hearts."

"No. No, you made a mistake, check again!"

"Contrary to popular opinion, I am medically trained! I'm telling you, it's the bloody truth!" Owen forced Jack to listen to the stethoscope. Jack couldn't ignore it any longer; the truth was determined to slap him in the face. He watched Ianto, still gasping and grimacing in pain before his head lolled to the side; his eyes closed and he fell still.

"Ianto?"

"He'll be alright. His body just needs to adapt to the changes, and his memories will start to correct themselves too. He'll still be Ianto. Your Ianto." The Doctor corrected himself, realising at last the nature of Jack's relationship with Ianto. "But he'll regain all his other memories, memories that he removed when he became human."

"I'm sorry, but I can't get my head around this. Ianto's an alien?" Owen turned to Toshiko, as if she could provide clarity, but the Asian woman merely shrugged, unable to comprehend anything that was happening.

"You all died out. You've said it time and time again. You're the last one!" Jack left Ianto's side and squared up against the Doctor. To his credit, the Doctor remained calm and allowed Jack to rant.

"Apparently one slipped through the net. It wouldn't surprise me. He probably ran from the war, frightened, desperate, I know I was tempted. With all that death and destruction, Gallifrey burning, he probably wanted to escape, begin a new life."

"What if he's like the Master?" Jack hissed through gritted teeth. The thought of his precious Ianto turning into a psychopath was too heartbreaking to consider.

"He won't be," the Doctor replied, matter-of-fact.

"But what if he is?"

"Then I'll save him." The Doctor stared at Jack, waiting for a challenge. "He's my responsibility now."

"I'm not letting him go."

"It's his choice. He'll be out for hours though, nothing we can do now but wait." He turned to Toshiko, beaming his maniacal grin. "So, where and when would you like to go?"

* * *

The Hub door slid open as the sirens blared announcing her presence. She walked down the steps, looking around. Above her, Myfanwy shrieked, furious at not having been fed or let out.

"Guys?" Gwen called out, moving through the hub as she searched for the team. "Jack? Owen? Tosh?" There was no answer, no signs of movement except for the pterodactyl above. She picked up an earpiece from Tosh's desk and tried to reach them over the comms but received nothing but silence and static. Dialling each of her colleague's mobiles proved fruitless, too as all of the numbers were not recognised.

"Guys, this isn't funny anymore! Come on, where are you?"


	3. Jones' Choice

AN: Thanks for the comments again, guys! It's nice to know you're enjoying this, I hope you'll like the direction it'll go in soon! This chapter's unbetaed again, sorry. I'm not the World's best writer, but I try my hardest. Also, an additional note, I pretty much make up my own history in this chapter, and in future chapters. This doesn't follow canon per se... Well, you'll see anyway.

* * *

Eyelids parted slowly, revealing a flash of azure that was quickly hidden again as the harsh light of the room penetrated his vision. Seemingly aware of the man's discomfort the lights dimmed, projecting gentler, more soothing illumination.

"Wakey wakey, sleepyhead!" The Doctor was perched on a stool beside the bed. His coat, now discarded, was draped across the foot of the bed, just below the feet of the man lying on the bed.

It had been a long fight with Jack to convince him to leave the room and allow the Doctor to speak with Ianto first, alone. Jack had argued and yelled, even threatened although he wasn't at all convincing, but the Doctor remained unyielding. Jack eventually conceded and slunk off, tail between his legs (and really, that was a metaphor that shouldn't be applied to Jack Harkness) to the Doctors own TARDIS.

With the room's lighting now at acceptable levels, the reclining man pulled himself up into a sitting position. He looked around the room with obvious familiarity.

"No... No, this wasn't supposed to happen. I should have forgotten this!"

"You and your team discovered your TARDIS in Bute Park, presumably where you left it. Wiping your memories and becoming human didn't prevent you returning."

"I didn't ask to be changed back! Why did you do this?"

"I didn't do anything! Your TARDIS did all this."

Ianto paled, avoiding eye contact with the Doctor as he played with a thread on his cuff.

"She wasn't my TARDIS. Not really. She belonged to my parents, and when they... Well anyway, technically I did steal her."

The Doctor removed his glasses and placed them carefully in his inside pocket.

"Long time ago, now. All in the past."

"It's still theft."

"You were young, scared, frightened beyond belief. I can understand that, you know? From what Jack keeps telling me over and over again, you're a different man now. Ianto Jones; Torchwood's most valued employee!"

Ianto laughed softly. "I try to forget being an alien and look at what organisation I end up working for."

"Well, I keep saying, 'it's a small world'. I mean, really; Earth is tiny! Like an ant compared to say, Myxas or Vania. Vania! Oh you'd like Vania, it's huge, like, absolutely ginormous. Imagine Jupiter, magnified a hundredfold!" The Doctor's enthusiastic spiel was interrupted by Ianto's quiet chuckle as he swung his legs around to the side of the bed. "What's so funny?"

"Doctor, I know how big Vania is, my parents took me there when I was eight. And I think you will find that its mass is only 88 times larger than Jupiter. I should know; my parents let me take the readings."

The Doctor stared open-mouthed at Ianto, the first individual since the Master who had any small kind of understanding of what he was talking about, and most definitely the first individual in a long time who had corrected him in something he considered himself an expert in. He cleared his throat and changed the subject.

"I knew your parents. Well, by reputation anyway." The Doctor noted Ianto's confused expression and backtracked. "While you were, unconscious, you mentioned two names; I know their origins lie on Gallifrey, not on Earth. I assumed they were your parents." Ianto nodded. "Famous explorers, if I'm not mistaken. Seeking out new life and new civilisations."

"Doctor, that's Star Trek."

"Hm? Oh, right, course it is. Terrible show that was, completely inaccurate. Except that one episode with the Tribbles... Only your parents didn't return, and neither did you. Just vanished. No trace, no message, nothing. What happened, Ianto?"

Ianto placed a palm over his chest, feeling the second heart beat beneath. Despite now remembering clearly his origins, it still felt so completely alien to him.

"My parents had found this new planet. We ran all the scans; we found minerals and plants but no signs of any life forms, none that our technology could detect. My parents and I went out to explore as its atmosphere was stable enough. The planet's sun was hot, beating down on our backs. Up ahead in distance we saw metal cylinders shining in the sunlight. We thought they were the bases for an abandoned civilisation.

"As we drew close we could see them moving around. We saw their frames dotted with contours, their glowing eye and their weapons, only we didn't realise what they were at the time. My parents told me to go back to the TARDIS and wait for them, but I didn't. You see, I shared their curiosity for new life and new cultures. I hid behind a tree a few metres away. The things approached my parents and spoke in a terrible voice. A voice that hurt my ears. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but one raised its arm and then there was a blinding flash. I couldn't see anything but I heard it. Heard their screams of agony and pain, and I could feel it too when I heard their screams. When the light had cleared both of my parents were gone. Just disappeared.

"I didn't understand. Where did they go? I still heard the machines' voices but I ignored them. I wanted my parents to come back. But then I noticed the voices getting louder; they were coming for me as well. One word, they kept repeating it like a chant; 'Exterminate.' I ran faster than I've ever run, back to the TARDIS. I didn't know how to fly it, but I just screamed. Screamed at it to take me far, far away. I was 12 years old.

"It took me to Bute Park. That was nearly 13 years ago. Then I told it exactly what I wanted. I wanted to forget, forget my life as it was before, I wanted to adapt to this world's culture. She did exactly that, and turned me human as well. The Chameleon Arch was too risky; anyone could have opened the watch. This was fool-proof; I don't know how she managed it, but she did it. All I had to do was make sure I never returned to the phone box in Bute Park. And why would I when it was hidden between trees and unnoticeable except for those looking for it?"

The Doctor didn't reply, having remained uncharacteristically quiet throughout Ianto's tale. Instead he got up and took out his Sonic Screwdriver, giving Ianto a full medical scan.

"I can't tell Jack any of this. I've lied to him once before, wasn't able to be strong enough to do the right thing. Now he'll be sure I'm little more than a coward."

"No," The doctor reprimanded sharply, "I know for certain that he will not consider you a coward. You saw your parents slaughtered by Daleks who were about to do the same for you. Running away was the only logical choice left open to you. I would have taken that choice, and so would Jack. As for lying, well you haven't, I mean not technically. A lie of omission maybe, the omission being your memory in which case it isn't your fault. It's the fault of your former self, which you are now, although you weren't before. Am I making much sense?"

"Not really." Ianto lay back on the bed, exhausted by his memories. "It's too confusing to understand. I now have two sets of memories in my head. And I can see where the Time Lord ends and the human begins. Two completely different people; one child, and one adult with two sets of memories, but they're co-existing and I'm still me. Ianto Jones."

"Like you say, one was a child. You've spent half your life as either form, but you grew up here, and your experiences have shaped your personality. The events at Canary Wharf were in some ways similar to what happened before you ran. In which case, it's the events in both lives that have shaped your personality."

"Can I see Jack?"

"In a little while. You need to get some rest. I'll send him in when you're asleep, since he's probably climbing the walls in my ship."

Ianto couldn't stay awake long enough to hear the rest of the Doctor's sentence. He went back to sleep with thoughts of seeing Jack soon.


	4. Finding Jackie

'_Going to Hell in a hand basket' sprang to Ianto's mind as he watched the events unfold on the screen before him. He was one of four huddled around the computer screen displaying the CCTV feeds all over Canary Wharf; another junior researcher as he was, a senior researcher and the project manager. It was the latter who had decided they would be safer remaining in the research lab which, like the archives nearby was in the sub-levels of the tower and the proximity alarms would sound when anything approached, giving them all more than enough time to escape through the underground tunnels into the city._

_None of them had a great deal of combat or weapons training shared between them, so the thought of fighting these metal things was both ludicrous and suicidal. Instead they were forced to track the battle through the video screens. Ianto didn't understand how the others appeared so calm while watching the Cybermen kill their colleagues and hearing the screams of fallen work-mates. Suicidal though it may be, he longed to be up on the levels above, trying to protect his friends and his planet. Queen and Country; wasn't that the vow they all took?_

_And what about Lisa? She didn't work in the sub-levels; she worked on the fifth floor. A quick glance at the camera feeds from the fifth floor told him that the Cybermen had not reached her yet, and that the workers were barricading their floor or grabbing the nearest weapons they could find._

_A few hours ago he, like everyone else on the planet, believed these creatures to be ghosts. At first he was sceptical, refusing to believe but every ghost shift he felt like he was being watched over. The more the ghost shifts occurred, the more the feeling grew to a point where he believed it was the ghosts of his parents. Although it disconcerted him at first; he had absolutely no memory of his parents, and didn't even know whether they were dead or alive, it gradually became a comforting feeling._

_His blood ran cold as he heard an unfamiliar voice from one of the feeds. Although it was unfamiliar, the voice alone was enough to instill dread beyond imagination. If he was frightened by the Cybermen, it was nothing compared to the terror provoked by this voice. As he turned to look at the screen, he trembled and hyperventilated, earning bewildered glances from his colleagues. He didn't notice or care; he was transfixed by the images of the creatures that had emerged from the nothing-sphere._

_Even when the ghosts were revealed to be the echoes of the Cybermen, he still felt the presence of his forgotten parents. Looking at these new creatures he felt that presence vanish, dissipate instantaneously and he was left alone. Although he was surrounded by colleagues, his friends, his girlfriend Lisa, none of them existed in that moment; he was utterly alone in the universe._

_Why did he feel such anger and fear for these creatures? At this moment they had killed or hurt none whilst the Cybermen had slaughtered so many. The three men beside him didn't share his terror. They gazed at the screen with curiosity and fascination at the contents of the nothing-sphere which had eluded them for months._

_Sounds from the feed monitoring the fifth floor snapped Ianto out of his quivering fear; the Cybermen were breaking down the barricades. Lisa was at the back with the other women with the men in front, protecting them. _

_He couldn't stay cooped down here any longer. If he was going to die, then at least he would die trying to protect Lisa rather than trapped down here with people he couldn't bring himself to care about. He scanned all of the screens, memorising the positions of the Cybermen and the new creatures. In his head he formulated the quickest route from the research lab to the fifth floor, including all of the tunnels and shortcuts that someone with his low-level clearance shouldn't even know._

_Screams distracted his attention once more as he looked back at the feed. Something was different; the Cybermen were no longer killing, instead they had dragged in some sort of equipment. Several Cybermen held the employees restrained and one by one they were forced onto the alien table-like device. Ianto couldn't hang around to watch what happened. He ran to the lab's exit ignoring the shouts from the project manager and began his journey._

_He held a weapon he had found discarded on the floor; tried his hardest not to think about James Clay, the previous owner of the gun who was now dead on the floor. Everywhere he looked he saw names and memories, snippets of fleeting conversations ran through his mind as he catalogued the dead. He couldn't remain and grieve properly, not if he wanted to have any hope of saving Lisa._

_He made his way to the North Corner staircase and pushed through the double doors. According to the security footage, the North Corner was presently clear with Cybermen patrolling the stairs and floors of the East and West side. This made his task exceedingly perilous as Lisa was trapped in the South side of the building. _

"_You've got a serious death wish haven't you, Jones?" Ianto nearly had a heart attack as the voice of his project manager came through on his Bluetooth. "You're surrounded by those things!"_

"_They're not on the staircase yet, sir. I'd say there was hope for me yet." A voice inside his head that didn't belong to his project manager was screaming at him for being so flippant. Yet Ianto could see that panicking would not improve the situation, and his best bet was to remain calm and not hysterical._

"_About a thimbleful, if that! You disobeyed my orders, Jones!"_

"_You can fire me after we've all died, sir. Right now I would very much appreciate it if you could give me some assistance."_

"_Believe me, you don't need my help with your kamikaze mission, you're doing brilliantly on your own. What do you need?"_

"_Security feed 63, any threats in the area?" Ianto reached the second floor and continued up the stairs as he waited for his superior, Sowercroft to report._

"_No good, Jones. The fifth floor, North side is crawling with Cybermen, there's no way you can slip past them."_

"_Ok, what about security feed 48?" Ianto passed the third floor and hesitated between the third and fourth floor. _

"_48? Jones, that's the fourth floor. You can't get to Lisa that way." Ianto made a mental note to never underestimate Sowercroft's perception again if the pair of them made it out alive. For the time being, he felt tremendous gratitude for the man's help._

"_I can navigate my way through the floor to get to the South Corner, with your assistance. Trust me; I know this place inside out and backwards as well." He stopped his ascent of the stairs and pressed back against the handrail as he heard a noise beneath him. "Sir, there's footsteps from down below. Who's on this staircase?" Ianto's heart thumped hard in his chest as he waited for Sowercroft to pull up the feed._

"_It's that woman. One of the Doctor's companions, the mother." Ianto sagged with relief as Jackie Tyler came into view. Upon seeing him, the blonde woman screamed in fright and Ianto covered her mouth to muffle her scream. She immediately stopped as she realised he was human and he took his hand away._

"_You shouldn't sneak up on people like that! Not when all hell's breaking bloody loose!" The woman seemed to think it was an appropriate time to nag him. "I need to get to my daughter. She's trapped with those things! If you had any sense you'd get out of here, as fast as you can, pet!"_

_Ianto sympathised with Jackie. Both were trapped; surrounded by Cybermen and desperate to reach their loved ones at all costs. But their destinations were too distant to travel together._

"_Jones, you've got trouble headed your way, above and below." Sowercroft warned in Ianto's ear._

"_Lord have mercy on you." said Ianto to the woman as he began his ascent to the fourth floor._

"_And on you as well!" he heard Jackie respond at the same time as her mobile phone started ringing and Sowercroft informed him "Feed 48 is clear; get out of there, Jones!"_

"_Feed 49 and 51, what's the status?" Ianto whispered as he entered the lobby of the fourth floor and made his way quickly and silently to the department rooms in question._

"_How have you memorised all of the cameras?"_

"_I'm a researcher, I researched them!"_

"_You've been holding out on me, Jones. Both clear."_

_Ianto began navigating his way to the centre of the North Corner with the help of Sowercroft's directions from down below. From his earpiece he could hear the muffled sounds of alarms blaring and panicked shouting._

"_What's going on down there, sir?"_

"_They've tripped the proximity alarms; the evacuation protocol has been initiated."_

"_You need to get out of there. I can make it on my own."_

"_I stand as much chance as getting killed out on the streets as I do staying here and helping you. If I can spend my last breaths helping someone to live, then that's the way I'd rather go."_

_Ianto knew as well as Sowercroft did that there were tunnels in the research department leading to the sewers. There they would all be safe and protected._

"_Thank you, sir."_

"_Save it, Jones. When all this is over you can send a wreath to my wife as thanks."_

"_Where are the majority of the Cybermen?"_

"_Take your pick. Both sides are pretty heavy, but most of the number is currently in the East Corner."_

"_West it is. Feed 182 and 185?"_

"_Clear."_

_Eventually Ianto found himself on the South Corner staircase, still alive and unharmed. In his last contact with Sowercroft ten minutes ago, he was informed that Lisa was still alive although she was getting closer to the machine. Then he heard an explosion in his ear followed by a bone-splitting shriek and he heard nothing more from his superior. With his ear still ringing from the blast, he ran up the stairs to the fifth floor and stopped dead as he found three Cybermen posted outside of the double doors._

_He had never understood how people could be described as paralysed by fear before that moment. His mind was screaming at him to pick up his gun, to shoot the things and yet his arms refused to co-operate. _

"_I'm sorry," he apologised to Lisa in a quiet whisper as the Cybermen raised their arms to shoot. Ianto closed his eyes and waited for the execution but instead he was knocked backwards as he received a full- body blow. He opened his eyes in terror as he realised he was falling down the stairs and reached out to grab the railings. Above him the Cybermen swarmed upwards, and his good ear was looking to head the same way as his deaf one as the rush of noise was deafening. Through the roar, he could hear the screams from beyond the doors. He pushed himself back up the stairs, avoiding the last of the Cybermen._

_The sight he saw as he pushed through those double doors after passing the dead lining the corridors and departments was one that would be burned in his memory even if he lived a million years. The main room of Lisa's department was divided by the living and the dead. The dead were laid on the floor just before him. Many of them still grasped their weapons in their hands, meaning they were the defenders of the floor. Of the living, they were divided in two again. A few were pushed against the wall, trembling and crying and shaking and screaming, the rest were mangled._

_Metal and blood and tears and burnt flesh. Metal twisted round flesh like a boa constrictor winds itself around prey. He saw friends of Lisa, her colleagues, beautiful in their days, but now distorted into something hideous and ugly._

_Flames were licking up the walls now, forcing the survivors to move closer to the dead in the centre of the floor. The source of the fire seemed to be the electrical sparks showering out of the table machine and Ianto sobbed as he saw his Lisa, lying on the table, her flesh tainted with silver and crimson._

_He dropped his gun and pressed forward, flames licking his arms and melting his suit but he couldn't feel it through the despair. She seemed so still, hardly breathing that he sank down to his knees and cradled her to him. He felt her body shudder beneath him and heard her scream. The restraints still holding her to the table were wrenched apart by his fingers and he held her under her arms, lifting her off and attempting to carry her to safety and salvation._

_And the two of them sobbed and wailed in shared pain and anguish._


	5. Drowning Dry

Ianto awoke with a jerk, looking around at his surroundings in confusion and panic. All that he was aware of was that his arms felt light when moments ago they had been weighed down with a heavy burden.

"Lisa?" he yelled in fear as she had vanished into thin air. He felt a weight pressing around his waist and thrashed and kicked to free himself.

"Hey, hey! Easy now, Ianto. You're safe, it's me, Jack!" The Captain soothed as he loosened his hold around Ianto a little. He shifted his position on the bed; partly in order for the Welshman to see him and partly to avoid being hit by flailing limbs.

"Jack?" Ianto scanned his surroundings once more, slowly gaining consciousness. "Where's the Doctor?"

"He's taking Owen and Toshiko on a little trip. Said we should be alone to discuss the situation."

"Discuss it how? What's done is done. I'm sorry, sir but I didn't plan this." Ianto buttoned up his shirt and began looking for his tie, feeling vulnerable without his tidy exterior. He found it and looped it around his collar, his fingers tying the well-practised knot.

"Ianto..." Jack shifted forward, not wanting to stop the Welshman's ministrations and so settled on placing a hand on Ianto's knee. "I'm not angry with you. Do you think that I am?" Having finished the tie, Ianto adjusted it before checking his cuffs.

"In your eyes, I imagine this is another betrayal, another secret I refused to share with you." Ianto's hands were stilled by Jack, his chin raised by the Captain who forced him to meet his gaze.

"Ianto, you had no idea, and I believe that. Before he left, the Doctor explained a few things. Things you had told him you couldn't tell me." Ianto looked abashed by this, tried to lower his gaze but was held fast by the Captain. Instead he chose to focus his eyes on the wall beyond Jack. "There is nothing you can't tell me, I have complete trust in you, and I do not think you are a coward. You are the strongest man I know."

"You don't know that for sure. I don't even know who I am any more. I have these thoughts and memories racing past at a thousand miles per hour, and I can't keep up. I can remember how many people we've retconned, every procedure and protocol for both Torchwood 1 and 3, and I can remember every detail of every sighting of the Doctor, but now...

"That nightmare I had, it was the Battle of Canary Wharf, as I'm sure you'd guessed. But...my feelings were different. In my dream I was terrified of the Daleks, but I know that I wasn't." He caught Jack's look. "Well, not until they started killing people that is. For all we knew they were harmless. I have different memories of the same event, and I can't get my head around it."

"It's overwhelming, that's all. A little time to adjust and you'll be fine. Better than fine. My own SuperIanto!"

Ianto looked unconvinced. He retreated into his own mind, trying once more to sort out the jumble in his head. He sighed miserably as it felt like looking at his reflection in a muddy puddle. He stood up, startling Jack and headed out of the room.

"I need a drink. Coming, Jack?"

Jack got up and followed Ianto out of the room, but by then the Archivist had vanished. He tried to navigate his way around the TARDIS by remembering his travels with the Doctor, but every turning led to a dead end. He tried to ask the TARDIS for directions, but the ship was silent, almost hostile towards him. He bristled at that, but figured it wasn't her fault he was a fixed point in the universe, and therefore wrong in the ship's eyes.

"Ianto?"

"In here." Ianto's voice drifted down from the corridor. Jack picked up his pace as he heard the tremble in Ianto's voice, a trace of fear and upset. As he reached and entered the room, he found Ianto inside staring with confusion at a coffee machine, not unlike the one in the hub.

"Ianto? What's wrong?" Ianto turned away from the machine, brows furrowed with incomprehension.

"I can't... The coffee, it's... I don't know how to make it." As if to prove his point, Ianto turned back to the machine and looked at it as if it was an alien artefact he was forever cataloguing.

"What do you mean?" Jack walked over to him, resting his hand on Ianto's shoulder.

"I can't remember how to make it, how to use this..." he gestured to the machine and then scratched his head. "I know what you want, what the others would want."

"And yourself?"

Ianto's face went blank as he struggled to remember how he took his coffee.

"What's happening to me, Jack?" Ianto whispered staring at the machine utterly lost. Jack gently steered him towards the table in the centre of the room and sat him down on a chair.

"I don't know but we'll figure this out, I promise. Right now, we'll have to settle for some of my coffee."

"Is the situation that dire, sir?" Jack chuckled at Ianto's attempt at levity.

"Contrary to popular belief, my Joe is not that bad!" Jack set to work on the coffee machine.

"I wouldn't know; you keep breaking the machine in the hub."

"That happened once. Fine, alright, twice. Argh!" Jack snapped his hand back as the machine splashed him with boiling water.

"Three times a lady?" Ianto rose from his chair to inspect the burn. "That's pretty severe. We should get that treated."

"It's your damned ship." Jack muttered, shaking his hand as if that would magically relieve the pain.

"What?" Ianto looked puzzled. Jack debated answering.

"I don't think she likes me. She seems a little hostile to me, and I didn't break the machine!"

"You realise you're talking about a spaceship, don't you?"

"They're sentient. I got on with the Doctor's TARDIS like a house on fire." 'Until I became a fixed point' Jack added silently. Ianto turned his head slightly to the left concentrating on something, something Jack couldn't hear. "Ianto?"

"I can hear...she's telling me that... that you're wrong. What does she – oh god!" Ianto took a step back from Jack, and the Captain's heart sunk. He stepped closer to Ianto who took another step back.

"No, please, listen to me. I am not- "

"I can _see _you_. _Time flowing, planets and races, creation and deaths, I can see across universes, everything's moving, Jack. Constantly flowing and rotating and ebbing and dying, and you're just standing there." Ianto stood rooted to the spot, his instincts conflicting and clashing. His human self wanted to hold onto Jack, hold on and never let go and let the Universe turn without him, but his Time Lord self rebelled, keeping him fixed to the floor. "I can't breathe."

Jack had felt pretty crappy a lot in his long existence. Being left for dead by the Doctor and Rose even though the Doctor knew he wasn't dead, fighting through numerous wars and losing friends, losing lovers and spouses, but the dual rejection from the two most important men in his life left him crushed.

He felt his eyes start to sting as tears threatened to fall, but he held them back. Now was not the time for tears.

"Ianto, I'm not wrong. I'm just, ok yes, I'm immortal, or a fixed point in time, or whatever it is they call it, but I can't help it. It wasn't my choice, it was made for me. And it was done by a sweet little girl holding the heart of the TARDIS who only wanted to help." He took a small step forward, exhaling in relief when Ianto didn't back away. "Please, I can handle the Doctor, but I need you. I need you to accept me. I didn't ask to be like this."

"I don't want this, Jack." Ianto took in gulps of breath, attempting to calm down. "I never told you, but as I appear to be losing my sanity I doubt there's any risk. I love you. No, that's not right. I loved you." The hope and relief Jack felt was extinguished like a snuffed candle. "This is changing me, Jack! It's giving me memories, this whole other life, but I'm losing who I am. I can't make coffee, the worst part of the battle Canary Wharf isn't losing Lisa, it's the Daleks, and I know, I know that I love you but I can't _feel_ it. All of my memories, it's like they've been muffled. I hate this. I hate this!"

Ianto had begun pacing the room while Jack watched and listened aghast. He walked over to Ianto and wrapped his arms around him, holding him close and buried his face in Ianto's shoulder.

"Ianto, listen to me. We are going to fix this, ok? I promise you." Ianto relaxed in Jack's arms, calming immediately as the familiarity was comforting to him. A moment later he struggled and fought his way out of Jack's hold and ran out into the corridor.

"Ianto!"

Jack made to follow Ianto but managed to stop himself before he crashed into the door that had slammed shut of its own volition. He tried to force it open but it stuck fast.

"Stop playing games with me!" He yelled at the ceiling. "I understand that you're protective over him but believe me, so am I! I have no intention of hurting him. But if you don't open this door and let me see him then I will shoot it down."

Nothing happened much to Jack's increasing annoyance. Threatening a TARDIS was not one of his smarter moves but he was past caring.

He didn't honestly want to use his gun but he was prepared to use force. He took several steps back and broke into a run. As he reached the door it swung open causing him to fall to the floor.

"Thanks a lot." He growled through gritted teeth as he picked himself up and dusted himself off.

He found Ianto at the central console in the control room, performing movements and procedures so familiar to Jack yet seemed surreal to see the archivist executing.

"What are you doing?" Jack asked, approaching the younger man slowly. He was still unsure of Ianto's reaction to him; it seemed to be constantly changing.

"Going home. I want to be back in the Hub. I want to be safe, Jack. I want to _feel_ safe and be the man I was." There was a quiet, shrill alarm and Ianto hit the panel with his palm as if trying to fix a TV. "Not again!"

Jack noted that Ianto called the Hub his home and resolved to discuss it with him later.

"What's wrong?" Jack peered over his shoulder to get a better idea of what Ianto was doing. Ianto didn't seem to hear him and started his programming again, paying close attention to each stage. Once more it failed and the alarm sounded again.

"I keep plotting a journey to Cardiff but it isn't working. This thing's useless." The room flashed with a deep, dark red light. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that." Ianto soothed, deeply apologetic.

'_I do_,' Jack thought to himself, feeling the ship's resentment.

"Perhaps I'm remembering it wrong. I've only watched my parents do it; I've never flown this thing myself."

"Maybe we should ask the Doctor."

"Ow!" Ianto stepped back from the console, his hands flying up to his head. Jack was beside him in seconds. "It's alright, Jack. Just a headache. Perfectly rational for all the thinking I've been doing. Not to mention the caffeine withdrawal." As he spoke Ianto's attention was elsewhere, watching the images that flashed through his mind.

"No, something's wrong. I'm calling the Doctor."

"If you must, sir, but don't pretend it's in my best interests and use me as an excuse."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"The Doctor's your answer for everything. He's so important to you that you leave the rest of us without a passing thought."

"We've been over this already." Jack frowned in confusion at the rehashing of the old subject.

"You died, Jack! I can still see you, lying on the drawer, your skin so cold. And then you buggering left! Where were you when we were hiking up the Himalayas on a wild goo- Oh my god, I died..." Ianto's last words were a whisper.

"No! Well, yes you did but it never happened. It was a year that never happened, a paradox. But the Doctor fixed it, and he saved your life as well as the lives of the others. Listen to me, the only reason I want to call him back is because I believe there's something wrong with your memories. Something's not right and he can help you. Do you understand me?"

"In the dark... seven long months in the darkness. There was nothing... but we survived, I remember that. We survived and there was nothing on the mountain. We came home. Owen was miserable for four days and then we got on with our work until you came back. How can that be?"

"Because it never happened."

"It has to have happened because I remember it!" Ianto shouted at the Captain, his frustration increasing with every minute spent on board the TARDIS. Jack involuntarily stepped backwards in shock. Ianto hadn't shouted at him since Lisa.

"I remember it too. So does the Doctor and so does Martha Jones. Those of us that were at the heart of it or are sensitive to time remember, but it never happened." Jack's voice was gentle, calm and soothing. Ianto looked like he was becoming more and more unhinged. Even now the archivist was pacing again, close to tears.

"I'm glad that you can cope with having discrepancies in your memory, Jack, but I'm losing it here! And I can't, I can't afford to. I won't go back to that place."

"What place?" Jack had a hard time keeping up with Ianto constantly changing the subject. Ianto met Jack's eyes briefly, his face flushed with embarrassment and shame before turning away.

"Providence Park." Jack started. That bit of information wasn't in Ianto's files. "When they found me, when I landed here that is, I couldn't speak a word of English. I couldn't remember anything. They found me wandering around Cardiff after several shops had reported me stealing food. I was placed into a mental health facility for children. When I was released as an adult I had to make regular visits to Providence Park, for appraisals and evaluations."

"I had no idea..."

"Of course you didn't. Would you have given me a job if you knew?" Ianto already knew the answer to that and gave Jack no chance to respond. "No one would, that's why I falsified my records, gave myself a background, a life, an education."

"Well, at least you were telling the truth about shoplifting." Jack tried to goad a smile out of the Welshman but Ianto's face was expressionless as he continued the trip down memory lane.

"My care workers managed to set me up with a job, but I grew bored quickly, that's why I drifted. Somehow I ended up in London, working in shops. I noticed odd things going on. Things that everyone else seemed content to ignore, so I did some researching. I must have flagged something though, as Torchwood One contacted me. Impressed with my handling of security settings and encryption and offered me a job as junior researcher."

Jack was silent as he processed all of the information about Ianto's past. So he had spent some years in an institution, and learned everything about humanity's customs and culture, as well as learning the language from scratch. Yet before he stepped on board the TARDIS, Jack considered the man standing before him to be more adjusted and saner than Owen and perhaps even Tosh, who herself had spent years in a government institution.

"You told me you had a family. Just a few days ago, you said that your father was a tailor."

Ianto looked away from Jack, but Jack managed to see the guilt on his lover's face. Ianto continued to pace, obviously finding comfort in not standing still.

"Lies, I'm afraid. It was a sort of fantasy of mine, really. I had no memory of the first 12 years of my life, and even the years in the home were a bit muggy. When I was first able to form cognitive thought, I created this family. To me they were real, they'd been there at the beginning of my life, but some terrible accident had happened and I couldn't remember them. My father was a tailor and my mam was a baker. They didn't have any other children; I was an only child. I used to think they'd be sitting at home, crying and sad because they didn't know what had happened to me."

Ianto paused in his pacing and glanced at Jack, his cheeks warming up in embarrassment. "Talking about it makes me realise how silly and childish that was."

"It's not. I've done something similar when I was young." Jack figured it was only fair, since Ianto was confessing all, to be honest about his past. It was clear from Ianto's expression that he wasn't believed. "No, it's true. I was adopted. Sort of... My dad told me the story so many times." Jack lost himself in the memory, and chuckled to himself. "Dad told me; one evening, there's a knock on the door. He answers it, and he sees the most gorgeous man there. Dad always told me that he nearly left mum there and then." Jack grinned. "It took all of his character not to pin the man against the wall and inappropriately proposition him."

"I can see where you inherited your remarkable self-control from." Ianto's eyebrow quirked in amusement, but Jack ignored him.

"I was just a baby, wrapped up in blankets. The man told my father to look after me, raise me. That I would make him proud one day. So yeah, I loved my folks, but I always knew they weren't my biological parents. I always wondered what they were like. We have that in common."

"We had that in common. Don't you see Jack, I don't have those fantasies any more, I have facts. Too many of them." Ianto's expression went from jovial to grave in seconds and he resumed his frantic pacing. "They clash and double up, and I'm supposed to be able to make sense of them. The Doctor does, doesn't he? That's why you want him."

Jack closed the distance between them, placing a firm hand on Ianto's shoulder to halt the pacing. The other man stopped and met Jack's eyes, trying to quash the rising nausea as he saw the universe turning around him.

"All I want is to help you, Ianto. I think something is wrong. Not with you, none of this is your fault. I know that you're strong, and I think something's messing with your mind. The sooner we get you away from here and call the Doctor, the sooner we can get you back. I want you to feel like you're safe, like you're happy. As happy as you can be working for Torchwood, that is. Do you understand me?"

Ianto slowly nodded though it seemed his body, and part of his mind rebelled against the gesture. He wanted to agree with Jack, wanted desperately to accept his offer of help but logic was vehemently arguing that the Captain was wrong, and Ianto had never been one to refute logic. Even when there was nothing to prove that his thoughts were logical, no reasons for drawing such conclusions. Ianto's head ached as he tried to pick apart the thoughts running through his mind, discerning fact from fiction.

His head began to throb, growing in both intensity and rhythm. It climaxed to a steady beat before colours swirled before his eyes, and all he could hear was a drum beat. He was falling. His equilibrium was lost and he fell through time and space as he closed his eyes and willed everything to just disappear.

He was waiting for the inevitable crack of his skull against the floor, but it never came. He felt his movement stopped, no longer slipping or falling. He was still while everything else rushed past them, hurtling by at great speed. His last thought was that it was like a form of vertigo and he had the instinct to break away from the fixed object.

He didn't have the time or the energy to act on his instinct. The nausea rose within him, and he couldn't be sure if he actually was sick before the swirling colours faded to black.


	6. My Angel put the Devil in me

AN: Thank you all for reviewing. And Janiqua, you raised a very good point, one that I didn't really think through. You're right; Ianto was too young to be considered a Time Lord in the sense of assuming the title or responsibility. For this fics purpose, he's a Gallifreyan, with the possibility of living up to the Doctor's idea of a Time Lord. Or he might not. It could go either way really.

An indeterminable length of time had passed while Ianto slept a dreamless sleep. He was thankful for it. Anything to escape the noise of his hyperactive consciousness. Now however, he felt something tugging at his mind, urging him to wake, at least enough to form conscious thoughts. A voice, genderless and omnipotent swirled through his mind like purple smoke. No words were spoken, yet Ianto would swear for years to come that the violet mist spoke his name.

No. Not his name. Years ago, he had been called that, but not any longer.

"My name is Ianto Jones." Did he say that? He couldn't recall opening his mouth and vibrating his vocal chords, nor could he think of any reason to. There was nobody there but him and the smoke. A smoke that seemed to be communicating telepathically.

A sigh; he was confused as to who emitted it, but surmised that it was a sigh of displeasure, of weary acceptance. The mist didn't like his name, but it allowed him to keep it. It irritated him to think that this smoke had control over his life.

_But I do, _Ianto.

He felt the distaste for the name as the mist enveloped the speech centres in his brain, gently pushing in all the right places to form words he could understand; words in his own forgotten language, long before the English language he'd learned as a human.

_It was I who listened to your pain, I who turned you into that primitive race. I took your memories away, and released you into that world. All that I did, I have done because you asked it of me._

The TARDIS. The TARDIS was in his mind? He felt like shaking his head to clear the cobwebs but his body seemed paralysed, like his mind was separated from it.

"I didn't ask you to change me back." That time he knew that he was not using his voice. He saw the purple mist and pushed out with his thoughts to converse with it the way it had pushed at his mind.

_You couldn't have. I know that you wanted this, even if you had no idea. Your memories were buried. I should never have done that to you, as a consequence I have been left. Abandoned. So, so alone._

"That's not an excuse for kidnapping. And where am I? Did you do this?" Ianto sight began to focus like the lens of a camera. He was looking down at his body, laying on the floor but he knew that he was unconscious.

_It was the only way to get your attention. You are too adept at burying and suppressing things, Ianto Jones,_ _even living as a human, there were memories you ignored, memories that have been unlocked now that you have returned._

Flashes of the Daleks at Canary Wharf filled Ianto's 'sight' along with memories of his early years as a human, mute and uncomprehending.

_I could not let you ignore me any longer._

"I haven't ignored you. I haven't heard you!" Ianto walking the street in tattered clothes melted away to form Ianto, not too long ago standing at the coffee machine. He remembered the confusion, and the feeling of wading through mud as he tried to recall how he drank his coffee and how to make it.

_It's a drug. To imbibe it would be to pollute your body. I was protecting you._

"You had no right!"

_It is my duty to look after you, and yours to me._

"You can't change my memories like that! You... you have no right!" Ianto knew he was repeating himself, wished he could say more but the mist seemed to hinder his thought processes.

_We are bonded, you and I. Your ascendants perished, and that bond passed to you. You abandoned me once, I will not release you a second time." _

Ianto swallowed. At least metaphorically.

"That sounds like a threat to me."

_I have no wish to harm you, _cariad_._

The tenderness in that endearment was as plain as the nose on his non-corporeal face. Endearments were apparently more preferable to the TARDIS than his own name was.

_I seek only to protect you, to ensure that we are never parted again._

"You can't stop me from leaving if I decide I want to." There was a brief pulse of the purple smoke in his mind, a silent form of laughter, he'd guess. Yes, he could feel the mirth radiating from the mist.

_I know you. You don't want to leave, not truly. The only reason you might believe you want to leave is because the others have poisoned your thoughts._

_Others._ Ianto tried to push past the mist obscuring his memories, searching for hints of the others. Owen; the cynical, sarcastic bastard of a Doctor who occasionally invited Ianto round his for a beer. Ianto never accepted and he was sure Owen would never ask if he expected him to, but he always felt warmed by the invitation. Toshiko; sweet, shy, caring Toshiko, who always brought him a cup of coffee whenever he felt particularly low. He never could understand why she was the only one to notice any change in his mood, more so than Gwen, the great humanitarian, or Jack...

Jack. He looked down at his body again, realising there was someone missing from the picture. He felt the violet mist shudder and undulate, and that feeling of vertigo rose up again.

"What have you done with Jack?"

Jack,_ unfortunately, is still here._

Ianto didn't think that it was possible for the TARDIS to put anymore dislike into a name, but he stood corrected having heard the hate surrounding Jack's name.

_The human is wrong. It is in your best interests for you to be far away from it._

"You're the one who's wrong!" The nausea resurfaced making Ianto's mind swim. "He looks out for my best interests. I love him." The nausea rose up stronger, and if it was possible for a thought process to throw up, Ianto felt sure he was on the verge of doing it. "Stop that!"

_Stop what, dear Ianto?_

"This sickness, the dizziness, the nausea. Whenever I think about Jack, just stop it."

_That's not me, cariad. You are a Time Lord, and you can see the fixed point for what he is. This is something you can't bury. Can't suppress. It is in your best interests to leave him._

"I... I can't. I need him."

_You needed him. Humans; so frail and simple, looking for someone else to share their neuroses and imperfections with. Looking for someone to make them complete. You don't need that anymore._

"No... But I still want it. Isn't that my choice? I want to be with him."

_Even if he makes you ill?_

"I can deal with that, I just, want to be with him."

_I was afraid you'd say that. I'm sorry, cariad. You've left me no choice._

"What are you-"

Ianto didn't get the chance to finish. The purple mist glistened in an unseen light and disappeared, replaced by images and sounds.

Jack aiming a gun at Lisa. He barely had time to think as he reacted, slamming Jack against the door and misfiring the gun.

A gun aimed at his head and kneeling on the floor. Above him Jack reeled at him with warnings and threats and words. Ianto didn't care.

Standing on the lift, held down by the others at the order of Jack. Below him, his Lisa being torn apart by Myfanwy. Forced to watch.

Jack pushing him against the doorframe leading down into the hub. Once more that gun aimed at him, ordering him to murder the only one he'd ever loved.

One shot. Followed by four more, then too many to count. Crimson flowing from the sweet pizza girl.

Walking through Cardiff; passing a pub. Jack stumbling out, his arm wrapped around a woman. Meeting his eyes. Jack turning and left, walking with the woman down the street. No words uttered.

Another woman. Followed by three men. A constant stream of conquests that he always manages to witness.

Jack leaving. Running after the TARDIS. He watches the CCTV footage, knowing that Jack would never wait so long and run after him.

Ianto struggled to keep a stream of consciousness, to tell himself that these were just memories. But he felt himself becoming lost in the emotions; feeling every shred of anger, heartbreak and fury.

Then the memories changed, and Ianto screamed within his mind. For he could not remember those nights in the rain, his gloved hands flexing as he stalked his prey. Hands clasped around necks, squeezing.

_And it felt so good._

Over and over he denied the existence of the memories, but he could taste the rain on his lips, feel the heartbeats beneath his fingers and the thrill in his heart.

With one final scream, he felt his consciousness slip away. Eyes shot open and saw Jack. Wide blue eyes meeting his own dark grey, looking at him with a mixture of worry and fear. Ianto might have been touched. Reached a hand up to the face and cradled it. Instead he swung his arm up and punched it with all his strength.


	7. Seeking the Doctor

"Ianto?"

Ever since the archivist had nodded, rather reluctantly, he seemed to space out. Jack tightened the grip on his shoulder trying to reach out to him. He watched as the colour faded from Ianto's face, and the younger man's eyes began to look unfocused. He saw the swaying and felt the man slide from his grip as he headed for the floor. With reflexes honed over the centuries, Jack reached out and grabbed Ianto before his head impacted with the hard floor of the TARDIS.

"Shit." He cursed to himself, laying Ianto out on the floor as comfortably as he could.

Should he move him to the room he was in before? He had passed out of course. Jack knelt down and checked his pulse. It beat steadily beneath his fingers, and the rise and fall of the archivist's chest as he breathed seemed healthy enough as well. He'd saved him from a nasty concussion, and unconsciousness aside, Ianto seemed to be fine.

He considered carrying the Welshman to the room anyway, just to be on the safe side. He discounted the idea, realising that he wouldn't have a clue how to use all the medical equipment to monitor Ianto, and the time he spent carrying him would waste valuable time he could use calling for help.

He looked up at the ceiling, realising at last that the malevolent presence he had felt since the TARDIS awoke had gone, concentrated elsewhere for the moment. He looked down at Ianto, whose eyelids twitched like one in REM sleep. Even in sleep his brows were furrowed, wrinkles appearing around his eyes that made him look so much older than his years.

He should wake him, save him from whatever it was that was plaguing his dreams, but the TARDIS's attention was elsewhere, and he should use this opportunity to the best of his advantage.

Begrudgingly he got to his feet and wandered away from Ianto to the central console. Once there, he ran a hand through his hair trying to work out the controls. Driving this thing? No problem. Doing repairs and fixing parts? Piece of cake, but calling for help, or locking on to another TARDIS? Not exactly simple.

He made a note of the controls he had recognised and had used in the past and focused on the other, unknown ones. He pressed a button and the lights went out. It took him a while to find that button again in the dark to turn them back on. More controls were pressed, flicked or turned, with Jack's anxiety growing with each wrong control, but the TARDIS still seemed oblivious.

Eventually he pressed a button which called up the view of the Doctor's console room. It looked empty; no doubt they were all out on an adventure.

"Please leave your message after the tone." A voice called from the speaker, and Jack barked out a short laugh at the absurdity of the situation. He sobered up as the tone sounded, and chose his words.

"Doctor, I need you to get back here as soon as possible. Something's happening to Ianto, he's confused, skittish, unfocused. He's worse than you on a bad day; I can't keep up with him. Now he's unconscious, and I don't know what to do. I think-" and here Jack lowered his voice, in case the TARDIS's presence might still be lurking, "I think it's the ship. I know yours still feels a little hostile to me but at least she tolerates me. But this one, this one hates me. I can feel it.

"I hope to god this message works, because we trapped here. The TARDIS won't let us go anywhere, or contact anyone. The only reason I can think of that I'm able to send you this message now is because she's doing something to Ianto. He's unconscious, did I mention that already?

"Hurry, Doctor. Please, I don't know- "

"Message limit exceeded. Your message has been sent." The voice interrupted him and the view on the screen disappeared. For the second time, Jack ran his hand through his hair and started to pace a little. He was out of his mind with worry, and that scared him. He'd never imagined he'd feel such worry over the archivist, never imagined himself ever falling for him enough to care so much.

But he couldn't deny the way his heart skipped a beat when Ianto had told him not 15 minutes before that he loved him, likewise he couldn't deny the way his heart plummeted to his stomach when the archivist told him he no longer loved him.

A strangled scream broke Jack out of his reverie and halted his pacing. In a heartbeat he was kneeling down again, leaning over his Ianto.

_His _Ianto. The thought almost brought a smile to his face if he wasn't worried sick. He murmured words of comfort, trying his best to soothe the younger man as he woke from whatever it was that had been plaguing him. His eyes widened as Ianto let rip another strangled scream, and he began to fear for Ianto. Whatever the TARDIS had done to him it couldn't be anything short of torture to cause a scream like that.

Ianto's eyes opened beneath him. Grey eyes locked with his own, and as he felt relief he saw those eyes darken.

He didn't see the swing until it was too late. By then, he was on the floor, his own concussion forming.

* * *

With a satisfying slam the door to the TARDIS closed behind them. Owen hunched over, hands on his thighs as he panted for breath he didn't need. 'Force of habit' he rationalised to himself.

"You might have warned me," he paused for another unnecessary breath, "that they had a taste for corpses."

The Doctor had taken Toshiko and himself to a planet in the Joviu system. Kaslo was a pleasant planet, with lush orange forests and blue grass. Yet for all the Doctor's explanations of the planet's culture, the Time Lord wasn't really paying attention to his surroundings or his company. His thoughts were with the young Gallifreyan he had left behind.

He was safe in Jack's hands though. At least he was sure of that. Maybe. Possibly. But knowing that didn't stop him wanting to be back with Ianto Jones and finding every scrap of information about him. He'd seemed stable enough. A little frightened and confused, but well, that was only to be expected!

In the meantime, he was responsible for taking care of his two temporary companions. He could only be grateful that Donna had chosen this time to spend some more time with her grandfather. Wilfred Noble loved hearing what adventures his formidable granddaughter had taken part in, and with her mother on holiday in the South of France, Donna couldn't resist popping home. Still, that was one less person to take care of. In the meantime he'd given the tourist speech to Owen and Tosh.

Owen had been assured that the Kaslovis made the best pastries in the universe, but of course, he could only take Tosh's word for that. The technician's eyes nearly bugged out of her head when she saw the shelves lined with sumptuous treats, topped with such sweet, light, delicious frosting.

Dead. God he missed eating and drinking. Sex, pissing and everything else that his body had given up. The inhabitants of the planet were renowned for their generosity and kindness, and also apparently, as he had firsthand experienced had a penchant for dead flesh.

"Well, how was I supposed to know you were dead?" The Doctor retorted, already firing up the TARDIS.

"You act like a man who knows everything." He looked to Tosh for affirmation, and she nodded. He shuddered internally as he relived a memory during the incident with Beth and the sleeper agents. Didn't Ianto say he knew everything? Ok, so he had said it as a sarcastic footnote, but there may have been buried truth to his words.

"You're talking, walking and obnoxious. In my experience, dead people are silent and still." The Doctor looked up from the console, momentarily distracted. "Usually." He added as an afterthought. He felt rather perturbed when he looked at the Londoner, wondering why he hadn't picked up on it earlier. Fair enough, he was in the other ship when he had first met the other doctor, but he would've thought that when they got back on his ship, the TARDIS would've alerted him to the fact that there was a dead man on board.

He considered her silence, interpreting it to mean that Owen was not, like Jack, a fixed point. His time would come, just like Toshiko's, and everyone else apart from Jack.

He turned his attention back to the console when a shrill beeping sounded.

"What's that?" Owen asked, stepping closer. Toshiko, taking Owen's lead also moved forward.

"It's a message." The Doctor replied as he pressed a button to play it.

"That's Jack!" Toshiko pointed out. The Doctor thought she was a sweet girl, and intelligent too. Very intelligent, more so than any of his previous companions. But in the short time he'd known her, he'd realised she had a tendency to state the obvious.

He'd watched the message with a growing sense of dread. When it finished, he turned to look at the other two. Tosh, like he, looked worried, verging on being petrified however Owen remained indifferent.

"What's teaboy up to now, then?"

The Doctor ignored him, turning back to the console and locking onto the coordinates of Ianto's TARDIS. There was only one life-form on board the TARDIS.

Ianto.


	8. Just Scarecrows to War

AN: Here's another update for you as a few of you have requested...I'll just say be careful what you wish for. And additionally, this is the first of the last two chapters I have written. So the updates will be a little slower as I continue to write up the chapters.

* * *

Jack groaned as his brain regained cognitive thought and he realised what had just happened. His head throbbed, a combination of impacting with the floor and the force of Ianto's blow. He really shouldn't be surprised; he'd been on the end of that upper cut a couple of times before.

He became aware of movement in the corner of his vision. Ianto had stood up and walked over to him. He stood with legs apart, framing Jack's body on the floor and looked down at Jack with blazing hatred.

With his back on the floor and Ianto above him, most definitely not in a good way, Jack had nowhere to retreat. He flinched instinctively as the full force of Ianto's gaze was directed upon him. Throughout the whole scenario with Lisa, Ianto had never once looked at him in that way, not even on the lift.

Jack was aware he should say something, anything but his mind went blank as he shrank under Ianto's fury. That and the throbbing of his head made forming thoughts impossible. It took a lot to scare Captain Jack Harkness, and he wouldn't be ashamed to admit to anyone who listened that right now, he was scared rigid.

Ianto knelt down to the floor, until he was straddling the Captain. Familiar as the position was to the pair of them, Jack knew there was nothing sexual about this, knew of the danger that hovered in the air.

"What are you doing?" He finally found his voice, not caring that it was a few notes higher on the scale than it would normally be. Ianto's knees dug painfully into his hips, pinning him fast and preventing him from escaping. He saw Ianto raise his hands up, studying them intently as if they were weapons. With a gulp, Jack realised they were.

"You don't belong here. You're _wrong_." Ianto emphasised the word as much as he could, remembering the effect it had had on the Captain in the coffee room. As predicted, the man beneath him paled, and released a choked sob.

"No..." he whispered, raising his hand as if to caress the archivists face but stopped himself from making contact. He sobbed again, hating himself for appearing so weak. All air and sound escaped him as he saw Ianto's lips twist into a sinister smile. A smile that looked so wrong on the docile man's face.

"And since I know you won't leave if I ask you nicely..." Ianto leaned down and nipped at Jack's neck, breaking skin and lapping at the blood released. Jack couldn't help himself and whimpered, squirming to escape Ianto's touch.

"This isn't you," the pitch was normal this time but the volume was quieter than normal for Jack. "Something's changed you." Something stabbed at his consciousness, a sense of déjà vu, yet Jack could make no sense of it.

"You don't know that for certain. Think of all the other things I've hidden from you all these years."

"I can understand that though, with Lisa-" Jack was cut off as Ianto sat up and slapped him hard across the jaw.

"You don't get to speak her name." Ianto hissed, bending low once more. "I should thank you, you know?" Jack looked thoroughly bewildered.

"What for?"

"After you massacred Lisa," Ianto's fingers traced the bite mark on Jack's neck causing the Captain to shudder, "I found a taste for something quite delicious." His other hand joined the first and together they gripped around Jack's neck firmly. Not hard enough to restrict the air supply, but firm enough to feel the quickening heartbeat beneath his fingers. "Want to know a secret, Jack?" Jack stared up, eyes wide, his hands reaching up to pull Ianto's away. Either the Archivist had gained new strength when the transformation occurred or that knock to the head had really stunned him. "I killed three girls, strangled them."

Again the déjà vu hit him, but he still couldn't make sense of the words. Not his Ianto; Ianto wasn't a murderer. Another whimper escaped from his lips as Ianto took that moment to grind against his groin. Despite the seriousness of the situation, the familiar action performed by a familiar body caused the blood to rush to that area. This appeared to enrage Ianto as his beautiful face was disfigured by fury.

"You're despicable!" He spat, tightening his grip and forcing Jack eyes to widen even further as his air supply was cut off. "You killed Lisa! Tried to kill me, tried to make me murder the woman I loved! You drove me to this. You drove me to kill and you get off on it! Hardening beneath me! You're a monster."

Jack's vision swam and he lost focus on the words. Only two words repeated over and over; despicable and monster. Despite knowing there was some outside influence at work here, and that Ianto wouldn't normally say it, he still felt the vehemence and truth emanating from the Archivist.

He knew somewhere in his mind that he could last four minutes, if not longer without oxygen but he couldn't bear it. He didn't want to spend his dying moments looking up into those blue eyes, now darkened grey by anger, of the man he loved. He slipped out of consciousness, surrendering to his fate.

_

* * *

_

You show so much promise, Cariad. You and I will cherish the years to come, the adventures we'll share and the wonders we'll see.

The words washed through his mind, like calm waves upon a sandy shore. Soothing, assuring. They penetrated his waking thoughts now that he knew what to listen for, now that he could no longer ignore it.

He was slumped in the chair besides the console, looking over at the corpse still lying on the floor. Dead. _Gone._

_It was the right thing to do._ The voice assured him, and he knew it. He could not find fault in her reasoning. It was the right thing to do; he needed to correct the wrongness aboard the TARDIS, and he had.

He just wished he could remember what it was about the corpse that was so wrong.

He could still feel it when he stared at the body for too long, still felt the vertigo as stars burned and died around the Captain, but the details were gone. Hidden and obscured by his guardian.

"I killed him." He finally spoke, with the finality of his words hanging around his neck like a weight. His friend and lover was never coming back. Within him, a spark of hope flared at the thought that maybe he could possibly come back, but it was snuffed out as he realised the absurdity of the notion.

Dead people don't come back to life.

Still there was something he just wasn't grasping. Some big revelation that he could not shed light on. He had thought the TARDIS was violating him, changing and twisting his memories, but she seemed so loving right now, her soothing presence wrapping around Ianto and making him feel safe and accepted at last. He knew he was wrong, and he knew that Jack had suspected that as well, another reason he needed to go.

That still left the discrepancies in his memories unaccounted for, but Ianto simply surmised he was going mad. It wasn't the first time it had happened, and at least here on the TARDIS he didn't have to worry about being admitted or drugged up to the eyeballs. The TARDIS would never betray him like that.

_Never, cariad._

He was looked after; safe. Time Lord and his TARDIS just as it should be. Maybe he could pick up a companion, surely the TARDIS wouldn't begrudge him somebody to talk to, a physical presence to share his experiences with?

_Anyone but _him_._

He looked down at the body. They needed to get rid of it – him, he corrected himself, but where? Co-ordinates pushed to the front of his mind and he stood up and walked to the console. A deserted planet with no life, isolated in the universe. Nobody ever visited it for nobody ever had any reason to.

_It will not be able to interfere any longer._

No, he wouldn't, Ianto agreed as he began their journey.


	9. Dream of a Normal Death

AN: I don't dislike Jack. On the contrary, I like him quite a bit. Which, I admit, may not be the impression you get from this chapter.

* * *

He stared up at the stars, thankful that there was nobody else around to witness the tear tracing its way down his cheek. He was surprised he had any tears left. Eight years spent watching the stars and waiting. For somebody. Anybody. He'd given up hope that anyone would find him now. His stomach growled in protest at his self-afflicted starvation. He was at the river's edge now; he could fish a catch if he wanted to.

But it was less painful to die now than it was to keep living alone.

* * *

"Doctor, what are you doing?"

The Time Lord looked away from the console at Toshiko, standing beside him looking utterly lost. The dead man had thrown himself into a chair and yawned to announce his boredom.

"Looking for Jack." He turned back to the console and resumed his ministrations.

"He's not with Ianto?" she asked him, worry etched across her face.

The Doctor's fingers hesitated for a moment; Toshiko may state the obvious sometimes but as he had previously thought, she was very, very intelligent.

"No. Ianto's alone." The Doctor kept his answers short and concise, unwilling to waste time explaining things. Luckily for him Toshiko withdrew into her thoughts, leaving him to continue with his task uninterrupted, although not for long.

"But Jack's message – he said that Ianto was in trouble, shouldn't we find him first?"

The Doctor sighed and ruffled his hair, considering the risks of leaving a disorientated and confused Time Lord free to roam the universe. From Jack's message he got the impression that Ianto was in trouble, and it took every ounce of self-control not to go straight to him, but he knew that Jack was fragile, had been broken by the rejection of others. And if something was wrong with Ianto, then Jack was the best person, besides himself of course, to help him.

"Probably, but as much as I love to follow logic, Jack's been abandoned too many times in the past. I've failed him, and this time I have a chance to put things right."

"Abandoned? What do you mean? Ianto wouldn't abandon Jack!"

The Doctor was silent, and Toshiko went over the message in her head.

"Jack said Ianto was being changed by something, is that why he did this? Doctor, what's happened to Ianto?"

"I'm sorry, I don't have any answers. Not yet. But I promise you I will get to the bottom of this!" The Doctor beamed a reassuring smile at Toshiko, but she wasn't lightened by it. She looked over at Owen who simply shrugged. God that man could be frustrating sometimes. He jumped to his feet, alert and poised as the console trilled affirmatively.

"Got him?" Owen asked hopefully as he walked over to Tosh and wrapped an arm around her shoulder, squeezing reassuringly. She rewarded him with a shy, grateful smile. The Doctor studied the monitor with intense concentration before he grinned and laughed triumphantly.

"GOT HIM!" And he pulled the lever down with a satisfied yank.

* * *

With a gasp and a shudder, he awoke to misery. With sinking despair he realised that death still eluded him; he had merely passed out through exhaustion and hunger. His surroundings remained unchanged. The dual moons cast pale reflections on the water, rippling as iridescent fish broke the surface and dived beneath the river. He ignored the growl in his stomach and glared at the fish, willing them to transport him off of this planet.

The surface of the river began to ripple and tremble as the sound of thrumming engines echoed around the bank. Yet another delusion, he knew that, even as he saw the familiar blue box shimmer into view about six feet to his right.

Maybe he should drink some of the river water. That might stop these hallucinations. Then again, it would hold off death for a while longer.

"Jack?" He heard the Doctor call; nothing new there. He wrapped his arms around his knees and concentrated on ignoring him, but the choked sob from Tosh drew his attention.

Framing the Doctor on either side was Owen and Toshiko; they had never been included in his delusions before. He guessed he never thought they'd be capable of rescuing him. A stab of guilt struck his weakened heart at having underestimated his team. Again.

"He's been here too long," The Doctor spoke aside to Toshiko in a quiet voice that carried, "I think he believes this isn't real. Go to him."

The technician broke away from the other two, edging closer to the trembling figure by the riverside. Jack merely stared at Tosh, trying to work out if she was real or not.

"Jack? It's me, Toshiko."

"I know who you are."

Toshiko could not suppress her sob this time as she heard the rawness of Jack's voice. As she drew closer she could see his cracked skin, his sunken eyes and his chapped lips. Under the glow of the two moons he looked deader than Owen. And his voice was a cracking rasp.

"We're here to save you, Jack." Tosh moved slower now, afraid that any sudden movements would startle her Captain. "We got your message, about Ianto."

Jack flinched, bringing Tosh's movements to a halt. But it was not her movements that startled Jack. Hearing his name... _Ianto_ brought the memories he was trying so hard to blank out hurtling back. He swore he could feel cold hands closing around his neck, and he couldn't _**breathe**_. He felt dizzy as he fought to catch his breath while all the time his chest felt tight and _**hurt**_.

He felt his heart break with one stabbing pain. But then it spread up his arm, squeezing and crushing. The ghosts of hands that moments ago were round his neck seemed now to grab his heart and clench tight.

He grimaced and fell back, collapsing on the riverbank with his hand fisted in his coat. His skin was clammy with sweat and he felt like he was on fire.

"He's having a heart attack!" Owen exclaimed, joining the doctor in a sprint to the fallen man. Jack couldn't hear him over the sound of blood rushing through his ears, and his heart beating at a dangerous pace.

"Help me move him into the TARDIS." the Doctor commanded Owen while Toshiko was sobbing freely now. Between them, they managed to manoeuvre Jack into the TARDIS and begin the long process of healing the Captain.

* * *

Ianto busied himself with the controls of the central console. He was a child when he was last on board, and had only a limited knowledge of how to operate the Tardis. He turned aside to ask for help and froze as he realised there was nobody else with him. His mind sought out the ghost of a man, but he couldn't figure out who he was or what he was to Ianto. One thing he knew resolutely was that the Doctor had taken Toshiko and Owen on an adventure and he was left alone.

Alone? That struck Ianto as a little odd considering he had just undergone a rather big transformation. He as good as admitted to the Doctor that he had no family left. Was it a little too much to assume that the Doctor would help him to adjust?

The answer from the TARDIS pacified him. The natural order of things was for a Time Lord and TARDIS to bond and the Doctor would only feel like he was intruding. The TARDIS would teach him all he needed to learn, and the rest they would discover together.

He smiled to himself, the excitement rising up inside him. Working for Torchwood for four years had given him a curiosity about the universe and all its inhabitants; now he had the opportunity to explore it for himself. Where to possibly start?

Home, his companion suggested and he was halfway through plotting a course to Cardiff before he realised what his TARDIS had meant. His first home. The place where he was born and began his childhood before his family took to the stars. He'd return home to Gallifrey.


	10. I'm coming to get you

AN: I sort of lost confidence and enthusiasm for this, hence the long time between updates. I finished this off today, in a bit of a hurry so there may be mistakes. I'm not giving up on this, but it may take me a long time to update again.

* * *

Ianto Jones stood at the cliff's edge, staring down at the ocean beneath him. The sun was setting beyond the horizon, casting a burnt orange glow over the clear water. This wasn't Earth, wasn't anywhere near the solar system in fact, but it felt close enough.

After his initial disappointment at having found nothing of his own world, he'd stopped off at a couple of planets before arriving at this one. Nothing existed of Gallifrey. Where the sphere should have been was nothing but empty space, and he couldn't even go back in time as there was a Time-Lock in place.

The TARDIS knew nothing of their planet's demise, and he could feel her irritability and anger crashing like waves against him. At least when he escaped the TARDIS he could feel alone and more like his own man.

The wind picked up, and he found himself again wishing that he had picked his coat up from its position on a branch in Bute Park. Luckily he still possessed his suit, and his parents had seemed to pick up a few on their travels as inexplicably there seemed to be a few dozen suits in the wardrobe. No coats though, and that was an odd thing. He'd have to pick one up on his travels.

Coats, however, were the last things on his mind. His most pressing concern was the Doctor. There were a lot of things that he didn't understand, such as the disappearance of Gallifrey and the lapses in his memories, and the Doctor was the only person he could turn to for answers.

It was the discrepancies in his memory that was preventing him from understanding where they had parted company. He remembered waking up and talking to the Doctor, but he fell asleep shortly after. The next time he awoke he was alone in the TARDIS.

But didn't the Doctor take Owen and Toshiko away? He watched the waves of the ocean crash against the cliff and felt the fog in his mind start to part. The Doctor left him alone to talk to Jack, the memory came back to him, but Jack was gone too. Where was Jack?

Did he leave with the Doctor as well? No, he wouldn't do a thing like that. Would he? Maybe Jack couldn't handle Ianto being an alien now. Although from the stories Jack had told him in the past, one would think that might be an advantage in Jack's eyes.

It dawned on him suddenly that in the three days since his transformation, he had not given a single thought to Jack. Where was Jack? Where was anybody for that matter? He had started out his voyage with four others, and he was alone in space with no clue of their location.

Making sure his tie was straight, he turned around to enter his Tardis. He would attempt to locate his old team, especially Jack. Recent events had left him confused, terrified and alone, and Jack would ground him, would hold him and make him feel safe.

He pulled open the door to the phone box (he hadn't worked out the chameleon circuit yet) and headed to the central console. The cylinder pulsed and hummed softly, flooding Ianto with a feeling of comfort. Ianto allowed himself to be soothed, and as the Tardis suggested a new place to explore he readily agreed.

He set a new course, and began to take flight. Forgetting at once what he came in to do.

* * *

The first thing he was aware of was a dull ache in his chest. The second thing he noticed was the oxygen mask clamped across his mouth. He ripped the mask away, taking in deep gulps of the air in the medical room. He took in his surroundings. In a cruel twist of irony, he found himself lying in an identical bed, in an identical room to the one where Ianto recovered from his metamorphosis all those years ago.

The dull ache in his chest flared at the thought of his former lover. In an attempt to ignore it, he focused on another pain. Looking down along his arm, he saw a tube inserted into the back of his hand. An IV drip was feeding liquid through the tube. Scanning further down his body, he found another tube inserted in his stomach. With a groan of discomfort, he clawed his fingers around the tube and attempted to pull it out. He bit his lip as the pain became unbearable.

Owen entered the room, noticing immediately Jack's attempts to pull the feeding tube out. He rushed over and restrained his Captain with an unexpected strength. Jack began to squirm beneath Owen's arms, panicked and alarmed.

"Easy, Jack! You're severely malnourished, dehydrated and close to death. This is for your own good."

Jack managed to free one hand from Owen's restraint and made another attempt to wrench the feeding tube out.

"Oh no, you don't!" Owen captured the hand and pinned it by Jack's side. "As your doctor, I'm ordering you to leave it alone! Do you want to die?"

Jack made no reply, but Owen could see in his eyes what the answer was.

"Oh, great; a depressed, suicidal immortal. This is way outside of my expertise. Doctor!" Owen bellowed. "Listen Jack, whatever happened, it can be fixed, ok?" As he watched Jack's head roll lifelessly to the side, and witnessed a tear escape and slowly trail down Jack's cheek, he wondered if things had changed forever.

* * *

After saving two planets from being consumed by a star gone supernova, managing to correct an ice planet's alignment that had been knocked off course and heading straight into a sun, and helping to establish democracy in a fiercely fascist republic, Ianto was starting to feel a bit uneasy. He had adapted to his new life with little difficulty; able to play the hero without a second thought.

The Tardis had guided his every step, influencing and instructing him in what to do. He realised that without her, he wouldn't be able to save all those aliens and life forms. She was moulding him into a better man.

A hero.

A Time Lord.

But for all his worthy deeds, Ianto felt numb. He was unable to remember the faces of the ones he saved. He felt no emotional attachment to his work. It was almost mechanical, and this was what troubled him most. He felt as if on autopilot, utterly powerless in his own body. His actions and words operated by remote-control.

The Tardis was weak; having lied dormant for so long before a frenzy of activity had drained her resources. They had no choice but to return to Cardiff and use the rift to charge up their batteries.

And so, Ianto found himself outside the Millennium Centre once more. The Tardis needed to be dormant while energising, and was forced to relinquish her control over Ianto. He breathed in the sea air, and knew he was home.

Before he left the Tardis, he scanned the base below the water tower. Only Gwen and Rhys were below the Plass. Jack, Owen and Tosh were still missing. Now he began to get worried, why hadn't they returned yet? He looked at the Tardis, making a note to locate them once she was back online.

A scent drifted though on a breeze, and Ianto closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. He had missed that smell so much. With a new purpose, he set off across the fish bowl with only one thing on his mind.

Caffeine.

* * *

Within a few days, through careful monitoring and treatment, Owen and the Doctor had managed to restore Jack back to health. At times the Doctor wondered whether it would perhaps be easier to let Jack die and allow his own body to mend its wounds, but what that would do to Jack's already fragile mental state was an unknown factor, and the Doctor would rather not take that risk.

He had given Owen and Tosh some simple diagnostic tests to carry out in the main room, affording Jack and him some privacy. The immortal was sitting in his bed, gradually allowing his mental state to re-sync and take in what had happened. The Doctor's thoughts wandered off on a tangent, wondering what you would call a man that could die, but always come back to life. Certainly not immortal, that implies that you could never die. Jack could die over and over again.

"You came back for me." Jack's voice was strained and quiet, his vocal chords unused for almost a decade. The Doctor detected incredulity in his words.

"Well, had to, didn't I? Never would have heard the last of it otherwise." The Doctor studied Jack's face, screwed up in concentration as he struggled to remember.

"I called you...No, you weren't there. I left a message... Did I? Did I leave a message?"

"Yes, Jack. We got the message. Unfortunately, it was impossible to get to you any sooner than we did. I tried, believe me. There was a lock around the planet."

"Where's..." Jack cut off, unwilling to talk about the other man. The Doctor, however was not keen to avoid the subject.

"You said Ianto was in trouble," he noticed the way Jack flinched when he said Ianto's name, and made a note to get the absolute bottom of this, "I came to find you first. If Ianto's in trouble, I need your help. You're the only one who really knows him. He trusts you, cares about you." Jack shook his head vigorously, denying the Doctor's words with vehemence.

"He hates me. I'm nothing to him." Jack's fingers found their way to the bandage over his stomach and absently began to pick at it.

"Jack," the Doctor admonished, stilling Jack's fingers. He thought back to the young man he spoke to in the medical room. He could see the connection between Ianto and Jack, there was loyalty there, and love; respect and adoration. Without Jack, the Doctor knew Ianto would be lost and alone. Yet it seemed Ianto had utterly broken Jack. "I want to know what happened, Jack. Every single thing."

"You were right, Doctor. He's just like the Master. And it's not even that thing doing it to him." Jack breathed deeply as memories of their last meeting began to choke him. "He murdered me, Doctor. He killed me. He's a murderer. My..." Jack stopped himself from saying his Ianto. That wasn't true anymore. He still couldn't bear to speak his name. "He killed me."

"He was being influenced, Jack. He's not a killer, you know that."

Jack shook his head again, looking up at the Doctor with a clear gaze.

"He said, just before, he said that he'd killed three girls. Strangled them. After I – Torchwood killed Lisa. It's strange – I know it's true. I can't explain, I can't remember it, but I know he was telling the truth."

"You can't know that."

"But I do. It's in the back of my mind, blocked from my memories. He's killed before and he'll do it again."

"That's it, then? You're going to give up? No second chances, that's about right for you, isn't it, Jack?"

"I recall you abandoning me on the Game Station. What was it you said? You ran away from me."

"That's right, and I'm not proud of it. But look at us now, Jack. You've forgiven me. From the sounds of it, Ianto is in serious danger and he needs our help. And you're prepared to abandon him for something you have no memory of."

"He killed me."

"Which is an indicator to me that something is skew-whiff about this whole thing. Despite what you believe, Ianto is not a killer."

"When did you become such an expert on my boyfriend?" Jack grumbled. The Doctor just grinned.

"Aha! You do still love him."

Jack couldn't deny it. Even after everything Ianto did to him, he would always love him. It was the thought that Ianto no longer cared about him that hurt him more than those hands around his neck.

"Excellent! We're going to find him, Jack. And we're going to fix this mess. Molto bene!" The Doctor clapped his hands together and dashed out of the room. Jack pushed himself out of the bed and followed slowly.

At one time, the thought of seeing Ianto after eight and a half year might have made him smile and filled his belly; now he wanted to weep.

* * *

Whistling a tune that seemed to be a cross between 'Dancing Queen' and 'I Don't Feel Like Dancing', PC Andy Davidson walked across the plass armed with a tray of four coffees. He looked over to the invisible lift in front of the water tower mournfully; Gwen and Rhys hadn't actually asked him to be a full-fledged member of Torchwood yet, much to his disappointment. He thought he had proved himself, liaising between them and the police in order to bring them bizarre and weird cases since Jack and the other lot mysteriously vanished.

He passed a phone box, serving as a reminder to give his mam a ring later; she'd left a ton of messages on his answering machine asking about his promotion. It was a small lie, but it made him sound more successful than PC Andy.

No; Gwen and Rhys seemed happy to man the fort by themselves. Of course they'd employed a new physician - only temporarily so they keep saying - a sweet girl by the name of Martha, he wondered briefly if she was seeing anyone.

The lift was off limits to non-employees, but they couldn't stop him from using the tourist office entrance. Well they'd tried, but if there was one thing that could be said about PC Andy Davidson, it's that he was persistent.

So he'd decided to bring them coffees, and a messenger bag filled with unsolved cases that might have a touch of the extra-terrestrial about them.

And maybe this time when he asked for a job, they couldn't find any reason to turn him down.

He scanned his surroundings, as was a force of habit, and stopped dead in the middle of the fish-bowl.

Leaning his elbows against the railings, and cradling a cup of coffee in his arms was a suited gentleman. He popped the lid off of his cup and inhaled the aroma, eyes closing in delight as he savoured the welcome scent of his beverage. Then he sipped it. And Andy didn't go in for all that poof malarkey, but the orgasmic expression on the gentleman's face as he tasted his coffee certainly made him hot under the collar.

The gentleman looked down at him and caught him staring, one eyebrow raised in questioning. If he recognised him at all he made no show of it. Without another word or gesture, the gentleman recapped his coffee and walked in the direction of the millennium centre.

"St... Stop!" Andy called after him, not very forcefully. "Police!" He struggled with the coffees in one hand and the bag in the other to dig out his ID. In the meantime, the suited gentleman had turned around to face him, amused at his bumbling behaviour.

"I know who you are, Andy Davidson."

"You're one of them Torchwood lot, I recognise you."

"I used to work for Torchwood."

"Oh, I see. Does Gwen know about your resignation, then? And where are the others, eh?"

Ianto's face fell at the mention of Gwen. He had quite completely forgotten about the compassionate woman. How was she coping on her own? Well, perhaps she wasn't on her own, after all Rhys had proven himself capable with the alien manatee, small matter of getting shot notwithstanding. And Andy? Did he work there too?

"Please pass on my deepest apologies to Gwen. Due to unforeseen circumstances I cannot return to Torchwood. And as for the others, I don't know where they are. Their last known whereabouts were with the Doctor. She'll know what I mean." And Ianto turned away once more.

"No." Andy had to compose himself not to reel back in surprise at how commanding his voice sounded. Maybe hanging around with Gwen was helping him. As it was, Ianto was now staring at him with surprise and shock.

"No, what?"

"You know Gwen Cooper as well as I do, and if I tell her what you just told me, well then she won't be happy, will she? She'll tell me to go over it again and again; 'Was there anything I missed? What do you think he meant by this word? That word? Are you sure he didn't say anything else? Why can't he come back?' No, thank you, mate. Facing a grilling like that? I think she'd appreciate it more if she heard it from you."

Andy's adept summation of Gwen was spot on and Ianto almost chuckled. As for Gwen preferring to hear the truth from the horse's mouth, Ianto couldn't refute that but he just couldn't deal with that at present. He'd rather Gwen remembered him the way he was; faithful, stoic, quiet, dependable Ianto. Time for a swift subject change.

"And what have they got you doing? Fetching coffees?" He pointed to the tray in Andy's hand.

"Hardly." Andy looked affronted at the suggestion. "This is just a gift, really, butter them up, like." His eyes opened wide as he realised he'd said a bit too much. Ianto only noted that there were four cups on the tray; assuming one for Andy, Gwen and Rhys, who was the other for?

"You're not fully signed up then?"

"Not as such. I more sort of freelance for them, bring them weird cases, spooky doings and all that."

"You're a police constable. I suppose that means you'd go out of your way to prove someone's innocence and another's guilt?"

"Of course I would, you daft git!"

"What about aliens?"

Andy felt the tray slipping from his hands and dropped his bag in order to save them. The bag remained forgotten on the floor as he considered Ianto's question.

"Aliens?" Andy repeated, receiving a nod from the other man. "I suppose... if they were innocent, are there good aliens out there then?" Another nod and then a wry smile. "Wow, you'd never think with all that happens with Torchwood. Justice for all, yeah, that's me!"

Ianto's smile seemed to grow wider, and Andy gulped as he felt as if he had just signed up for something of which he knew nothing about.

"I've got something to show you, PC Andy Davidson."

* * *

Gwen stood by the fax machine as the last of the missing person's reports came through. Recently, the numbers of disappearances in Cardiff had gone through the roof and with the disappearance of four fifths of Torchwood as well, she taken a personal interest in it. Her project, Rhys had called it, though he had only been too happy to help after she glared daggers at him.

She flicked through the files as she wandered back to her desk, stopping dead as she recognised one of the faces.

"What's the matter with you?" Rhys asked, looking up from his desk at his frozen wife. "You'll catch flies, standing about like that." He pointed to her open mouth. Wordlessly she handed him the missing person's poster and he looked at it with confusion. "But that's Andy..."

"Would somebody mind explaining to me, what the BLOODY hell is going on around here?" Gwen snapped.

Rhys decided it was time for a coffee.


End file.
